McCANN – “LOTS OF POSITIVES”

Midfielder pleased to make first start of the season as Latics play out 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough on Saturday.

Delighted to last 90 minutes.

Repeat performances will produce more points.

Positive Mackay reflected in how we played.

Midfielder Chris McCann was delighted to make his first Latics start in eight months in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough at the DW Stadium.

The 27-year-old, who has featured from the bench in the last two Sky Bet Championship games, continued his recovery from a knee injury picked up against Manchester City in March with a top performance against the high-flying Teessiders.

McCann received praise from his new manager Malky Mackay and he was personally pleased to get through his first full game of the season, though the game was tinged with disappointment after a much-improved performance returned just a point after Patrick Bamford’s second-half leveller.

“Surprising I feel alright,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d last 90 minutes to be honest, we were discussing at half-time how long I had left in me so to last the 90 minutes is fantastic and I felt quite good.”

“I think we probably could have taken all three points, I think the display was quite good and if we’d been a little bit more ruthless we could have taken all three points.

“They only really had one opportunity in the second-half and that was the goal so there are a lot of positives to take from the game.

“It was a great start for the gaffer as well, the team worked really hard and we’re just a little bit disappointed we didn’t take the three points.”

McCann praised the impact of his new manager this week and he also feels that repeat performances in the next few weeks will yield a substantial amount of points and lift Latics up the Sky Bet Championship table.

“The gaffer has been really positive with us all week and I think that reflected in how we played,” McCann added.

“When you look at the table, it was third from the bottom against third from top, and you wouldn’t have thought that was the case if you were watching the game.

“If that’s how we’re going to play every week, then I don’t think we’ll have any problems - we responded really well on the back of a couple of bad results.”

Next up for Latics is a trip to Sheffield Wednesday and McCann is hopeful that the result against Boro will spur the players on to go one better against the Owls.

“Sheffield Wednesday is never an easy place to go to but we’ll take the positives, discuss the Middlesbrough game and go there confident,” he continued.